After innovation hub Embarc Collective released its first ever Glaring Gap report, which detailed the level of funding both in female-owned startups and among female-founders, the findings confirmed what many already knew: Changes needed to be made.
The report, released in late October, showed that over the last decade female-led startups received 12 percent of total funding in Florida. And on the investor side, only 15 percent of Florida's 271 investment firms had one woman on its team. When it came to women being in leadership roles, that number dropped to 8 percent.
"But there is some good news — today is the good news," Embarc Collective CEO Lakshmi Shenoy said during the Glaring Gap Summit held Thursday morning. "Today we rise together to change the future of the Florida investment landscape."
The Glaring Gap Summit brought 50 Florida-based women together, from accredited investors, to emerging young professionals, to college students seeking venture capital paths. The Glaring Gap report and subsequent summit are a result of Tampa-based Embarc Collective's partnership and grant with JP Morgan, which gave it and the Tampa Bay Wave $500,000 over two years to boost women in technology in the local ecosystem.
"If I had the assistance I needed (in furthering my own business) ...there's no telling what I could have done with that," Bonnie Bolton, senior vice president at JP Morgan Chase, said during the summit. "But I'm working for a company where, in everything we do every day, we try and invest in women."
The summit featured keynote speaker Alexa von Tobel, a Jacksonville native who founded fintech company LearnVest, which was later acquired by Northwestern Mutual for $250 million. She now is the head of Inspired Capital. Cheryl Campos, head of venture growth and partnerships at Republic, Samara Mejia Hernandez, founding partner at Chingona Ventures and Angela Lee, founder of 37 Angels, broke down the various types of investments — venture capital, angel investing and equity crowd funding.
We've rounded up some key takeaways below.
Von Tobel's key points:
• On the steps she makes sure to do daily: "Get up, dress up, show up," she said, referencing the importance of waking up early and fighting the urge to wear casual clothes even while working from home. "Everyone can bring a positive attitude to every day. You don't have to end the day with that, but you have to start with it. I was building a company at the bottom of a recession, but I showed up and gave 100 percent."
• On going after investors: "The orientation to money is the first thing you have to tackle. We feel bad saying 'I want to make more money' and at the bare minimum women should make the exact same as men. You shouldn’t be ashamed to demand what you're worth and once you have money, make great choices with it."
• On what she looks for in entrepreneurs: "You need the power of resilience, you need to be contrarian and if you're a great founder, the world doesn't know until you sell your company. Every day along the way people will say, 'That's a terrible idea' but I had to believe in it."
On equity crowd funding:
• Campos first started off stating there is a misconception with crowd funding. "We're trying to change the lingo to crowd investing because people think of kickstarter, but this is different where you can raise $1 million to soon-to-be $5 million for your startup," she said.
• "It's great for those who don't have friends and family money but you can start the campaign and go in guns blazing."
• An added marketing bonus comes with crowd funding: "It's a great way to build a customer base and reward customers. They will become a lifelong brand evangelist; if they invested in you, they will tell everyone."
On angel investing:
• Individual investors invest their own money, allowing them more flexibility to have a wider range of investments.
• Investors have a variety of angel investor networks to choose from: it could be geography-based, such as networks focused only on Florida. There are sector-based funds, including the Life Science Angels network. There are also affinity-based funds, such as ones focused on females, minorities, or specific universities.
"If I am going to invest my money, where am I going to put it? There is no right or wrong answer but the way to have impact on this world is with our dollars," Lee said. "It's not just because SpaceX is exciting or augmented reality is popular, but where do you want to put your money?"
On venture capital:
• Venture capitalists are fund managers, which bring a different return profile than angel investors which drives a majority of investment decisions. "Versus an angel investor, you invest if you like the company, and you like the person," Hernandez said.
• "Every single investment you make as a VC, you hope will be the home-run in your portfolio," Hernandez said, adding that, out of an average of 10 companies, seven will fail, two will break even and one will exit. "We're in a high-risk, high-return business but we try to mitigate the risk as much as possible."
The Glaring Gap summit will continue with the women sitting in on the invite-only TechWomen Rising cohort pitch night on November 17.
